


End Of The Line

by suzannahbee123



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22601464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzannahbee123/pseuds/suzannahbee123
Summary: A century old friendship… how much is too much for one friend to have on his shoulders?
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	End Of The Line

** _1936_ **

_ “Because I’m with ya until the end of the line, pal.” _

When he had first spoken those words to a grieving Steve, sadness and exhaustion living in his eyes, Bucky Barnes had meant them. Every fibre in his being was  _ there  _ for his best friend. To live with what Steve Rogers did on a daily basis? To go through his level of pain and sickness? It took a strength of both body  _ and  _ mind that most people could never truly understand.

To lose your mother on top of all that… Bucky couldn’t stand to see his friend so low, hated the fact that he had pulled away, if only for a few hours. 

So he had promised him.

The words came to him, god only knew what “the end of the line” really meant in that moment, but he had said them, Steve had smiled, and Bucky could breathe easier again. Steve Rogers  _ needed  _ someone to watch out for him, whether he would ever admit to himself or not.

***

** _1943_ **

What they had done to him had  _ hurt,  _ needles, and shocks, and straps, and unending cold. 

They talked about him, stood right over his head, sometimes in English, sometimes German. Always about what to do to him next. To listen to them talk and  _ know  _ what was coming was terrifying… to listen to them talk, and  _ not  _ know, was worse.

Through it all though, the pain and the cold, Bucky would think of Steve. How the guy had been to so many doctors all through his life. Strapped down and poked and prodded. Stuck with needles and forced to drink liquids that made him feel even more sick than usual. Steve Rogers has been going through shit like this,  _ voluntarily,  _ his whole damn life. The little bugger had more strength in him than Bucky ever would.

If he was going to die in this cold room, strapped to a hard table and muttering his numbers in softly furious defiance, he would do it and think of Steve Rogers. The little guy from Brooklyn who was too strong to  _ ever  _ give in to bullies and assholes like these men.

Steve was safe and away from the horrors of war… but he had to live with the un-ending fight to stay alive in his own body. For Steve, for his best friend who would gladly give his life to save Bucky or any of the men downstairs… Bucky wouldn’t break. He might die, his body might be torn apart by the crap they were pumping him with… but he wouldn’t break.

When he died and met Steve on the other side, he could finally tell his friend he was as strong as he was.

***

** _A month later_ **

The bruises were still there, under the skin. A few cuts littered his flesh, the ones on his face had yet to fully heal… but he was alive.

The pub in London was loud, louder than Bucky really felt comfortable with, but who was he to tell the other soldiers that he wanted them to stop singing? That their celebration set his teeth on edge. Who would’ve thought that Bucky Barnes, man about town, would hate the sound of revelry? Not him, that was for damn sure.

A month locked inside a room devoid of any music but the sound of his screams was more than enough to change him. HYDRA hadn’t killed him, but he wasn’t the same anymore, either… but he couldn’t say that out loud. 

He wasn’t the only one changed by this war.

“So, ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?”

Little Stevie… only the dumb asshole wasn’t so little anymore. He had put his life in the hands of strangers and came out the other side physically stronger than before… but he was still Steve. Still the stupid punk that would take on whole armies by himself as he stood shaking with fatigue.

“Hell no,”

Bucky was shaking with fatigue. Bruises ached under his skin and his head hurt from  _ whatever  _ it was HYDRA had tried to do… but Steve was his own worst enemy and those loud jerks in the back would only encourage him to be even more reckless than usual…

“That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run away from a fight? I’m following him,”

Bucky loved Steve like a brother. No way he was letting him go and do this alone. Bruises fade, cuts heal, Steve Rogers knew that better than Bucky Barnes. Besides, Bucky reasoned as Steve flirted poorly with Agent Peggy Carter, Steve was a big guy now, fighting that good fight like he always wanted.

HYDRA was toast, and Bucky wanted to be there when it happened.

***

** _1945_ **

Falling… Steve’s face getting further and further away… after a few seconds it was easier to let it happen. The screaming seemed pointless and the air was rushing by too fast to take a gulp, anyway.

At least this way Steve might stop fighting. Bucky was happy to fall if it meant Steve would fly free.

It didn’t even hurt when he landed. That came later.

_ *** _

** _1945 - 2014_ **

_ Pain. Cold. Ice. Blood. _

_ Pain. Cold. Ice. Blood. _

_ Pain. Cold. Ice. Blood. _

_ Pain. Cold. Ice. Blood. _

_ Pain. Cold. Ice. Blood. _

_ Until the man on the bridge. _

He watched the man fall, a river rushing up to meet his star spangled body-

_ Steve? _

— so he fell with him. Helped him out of the cold water and back onto the dirt. He didn’t stay though.

Not this time.

_ “Are you ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?” _

Those words rose unbidden in his mind… the man from the bridge had said them to him… long ago.

_ “Hell no. That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run away from a fight? I’m following him,” _

The dirt beneath his boots was wet, almost sucked the leather shoes from his feet. The water was cold and smelled faintly of old pollution. His right arm hurt and his left hadn’t hurt at all for…

_ How many years has it been? _

Steve Rogers was fine.  _ Captain America _ was fine… and  _ he  _ wasn’t.

_ I’m not going back. _

He took one last look at the man from the bridge, memories of their life swirling in his brain like bright white snow in a pitch black storm.

Hundreds, thousands…  _ millions _ of memories, and he couldn’t catch one to see what made it different from the rest. All he remembered was that pub in that city.

_ “Are you ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?” _

He turned from the broken man from the bridge. His best friend who still fought wars that were far too big for him. He would come back to him… eventually.

When he was ready.

***

** _2016_ **

Freedom was hard. It was tough. Freedom for Bucky Barnes was having the strength of will to make a life for himself when most days he could hardly remember his own name, never mind the address of the kitchen where he worked for cash.

Freedom was heady.

Over seventy years had passed since the moment he fell from the train. Most of them he could barely recollect, and for that he was thankful. What he  _ could _ remember, however? He wrote down in the journals he had bought with some of the first money he had earned.

It felt…  _ good,  _ to write down what little he could remember. Even the memories that made cold sweat break out across his brow and his lower back, they were  _ his  _ memories… he was allowed to remember them now.

The journals filled, more and more thoughts and ideas and memories scrawled across the lined white surface. Once they were full, he added them to the backpack under the floorboards. His escape plan… just in case.

He didn’t want to leave though. 

Romania suited him. He wasn’t living  _ well,  _ but he was  _ living.  _ He owned  _ things,  _ had his own space and chose what he wanted to eat, what he wanted to wear, and when he wanted to sleep. Pretty dames sometimes smiled at him and old people nodded as he passed them in the street. Little kids didn’t scream and run at the sight of him, and if he made a mistake in the kitchen, no one yelled at him, or tried to hurt him.

Looking over his shoulder every time he heard a siren may have become second nature… but he was still  _ living. _

Bucky would keep up with what was happening in the rest of the world, the internet and what it held was one of his favourite things in this new millennium. HYDRA had fallen,  _ apparently,  _ and it was all thanks to one man.

Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America. 

His old friend was still out there, trying to punch every Nazi, and other kind of bully, he met. Bucky was glad that some things from  _ before  _ would never change… but he also knew that  _ he  _ had. Steve Rogers has always wanted a fight, and to be on the right side of it.

Bucky just wanted to  _ live. _

He knew that Steve would be looking for him, along with the whole world’s criminal justice system, and that was why he stayed away. Steve might’ve been his friend, but he was still that little punk who would fight his way out of a bad situation, just because it was  _ the right thing to do.  _ So, no, for now at least, Bucky would stay hidden.

The journals got filled and packed away. More got bought and hidden in secret corners… except one.

There was one that Bucky couldn’t quite bear to hide away, or to stow away in the backpack under the floor. It was the one that he kept out just in case he couldn’t get back to his little unkempt haven… the one that he wanted someone to find first. It held every name that he could remember, on every date that wasn’t scrubbed away. This journal was his book of sins to atone for.

_ That  _ was the one he found in the hands of Steve on that day the sirens got too close. 

“This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck,”

_ You broke into my home. Looked through my things. SWAT is at my door for something I didn’t do and- _

“It always ends in a fight,”

_ Thanks to you. _

Bucky could hear them. Police. SWAT. Men with guns. All coming to kill him for a bombing that he had no memory of.

_ I  _ don’t  _ do that anymore! _

The glove came off his metal hand, his distorted reflection shining back at him. More boots and thuds. Bucky could just make out the sounds of their whispers and the crackle of their radios. 

And still, Steve just stood there, looking at  _ him  _ like  _ he  _ was the one with a problem.

“You pulled me out of the river! Why?”

_ I wish I hadn’t. _

“I don’t know,”

Steve stared at him, righteous fury in those sea blue eyes of his, “Yes, you do,”

Bucky  _ just  _ caught how his shoulders squared, how he looked  _ pleased  _ that he knew how his friend thought. At that moment, all Bucky wanted to do was knock that smug look from his face…

But that was when the bullets and bombs started flying.

The men were like ants, faceless and legion. They came in waves and grabbed at him, hit him and yelled and screamed. Bucky didn’t  _ want  _ to hurt them, but he was  _ done  _ being attacked all over again. They got in his way? He threw them out of it.

The second he got a chance, he ran and jumped to the next building, to his backpack of memories and the chance at starting over  _ again.  _ He didn’t think about Steve Rogers, or about the men with bruised and broken bodies he was leaving behind. Let them fight a war with another faceless man, let Steve go toe to toe with the bad guys  _ again.  _ Let them fight and win and lose… but, please  _ God _ , let him  _ live. _

Of course, that didn’t happen though. The man in black came out of nowhere, knocking the wind from Bucky. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him after all this time.

It  _ did  _ always end in a fight.

***

Bucky didn’t blame Tony Stark for reacting how he did. He probably would act the same if the situations were reversed. Of course, he  _ wanted  _ to try and talk sense into the man, wanted to try and apologise… 

Before he  _ could,  _ however, Steve admitted that he knew what Bucky had been forced to do, all along.  _ How  _ he had known was beyond Bucky, but apparently he  _ had  _ known and kept it from the person who needed to know the most. To “protect” Bucky.

Steve’s version of protection didn’t work out so well.

Bucky’s whole body hurt. Bruises ached under the skin, and cuts oozed blood over his face. None of that really bothered him in the haze of noise and ringing… 

His left arm hurt for the first time in over seventy years.

Bucky remembered the electricity that they pumped into his skull. Remembered the searing agony of the lightning that scorched away his memories, leaving blackened ash and blood in its wake. He remembered how much it  _ didn’t _ hurt after a while, because the pain never really left him, the black in his head became his new daylight. It was all he knew.

The sizzling stump of his metal arm brought it all back. The fear, the terror, the slowly leeched away knowledge that this  _ wasn’t  _ who he really was.  _ He _ was Bucky Barnes, and  _ not _ a killer. Son, brother, boxing champion, man who wooed ladies and, of fucking course, best friend to Steve Rogers.

His left arm hurt him for the first time in over seventy years, and all Bucky could think as he stared up at the concrete ceiling whilst blood oozed from his face, the faceless man who started this war ran away, and Steve continued to fight those he had never needed to was;

_ I should have left him here and ran. I might not be worth all this, but… maybe neither is Steve Rogers. _

_ *** _

Wakanda was beautiful. Sun, warmth, and green, green trees.

The tube was the opposite, dark and cold and metal… but Bucky was  _ choosing  _ to step into it this time. No more running, no more hiding, no more being used against his will by HYDRA, or anyone else who held a grudge against his friend.

No more Steve.

Steve Rogers’s blue eyes, with just a hint of green, held more sadness then Bucky wanted to dwell on… but the ice took over, and he didn’t have to see them for long.

***

** _2018_ **

The morning that ended it all started out like most of the others. Bucky woke up at sunrise, taking a moment to enjoy how his head may have felt muddled, but it was purely from sleep. He took some more minutes to let any new memories rise, and then a yet another few more minutes to write them down.

More time was spent just resting. Staring up at the thatched ceiling and enjoying knowing he  _ could  _ get up to tend to his farm… but he  _ could  _ also stay in bed. No one would reprimand him, the goats would still get fed, and he would just have to catch up a little  _ tomorrow. _

The prospect of a new day filled him with joy.

Bucky got up, dressed, ate fresh fruit and got to work, and it was a good day… Until General Okoye and King T’Challa came with a new arm that he didn’t want, and the assumption that he would join in the fight. They had given him  _ everything _ … how could he possibly say no to them?

The answer, of course, was that he couldn’t.

So, instead of getting sweaty and sunburned from a good day's hard work, Bucky showered, washed and stretched out his already aching muscles. Attached the arm that may have  _ felt  _ like it belonged on his shoulder, but didn’t. Dressed in the toughened war clothing provided to him, and strapped on all the weapons handed to him, because that was what a soldier did, wasn’t it?

Nearly a century since the first one he had been drafted into, and he was still being given orders.

When Steve arrived, looking tired and unkempt, and with his merry band of renegades, Bucky  _ did  _ smile. Steve may have looked like he could use a shave and a haircut, but he also looked…  _ happy. _

This was _the_ big fight. The one that The Avengers has known was coming for years… maybe when they won this one, Bucky could live that life that he always wanted to. Bucky hugged Steve to him, feeling an odd mix of resentment and relief. He would fight at Steve’s side again, how could he not?

Hours and hours later, Bucky had to sigh. He had got his wish,

_ “Steve?” _

This  _ was _ the last time he would have to fight at Steve’s side. 

***

** _2023_ **

Life, even after death, still had to be lived.

The wars were finally over, Bucky’s name was no longer on the World’s Most Wanted lists, and his thoughts belonged to him once more. The dream of just _living, _of no more fighting and scraping for his existence, was barely a hair's breadth away from him. His freedom was no longer just a pipe dream, he could almost taste it.

But Steve got  _ his  _ happily ever after, first.

Bucky  _ wanted  _ to be happy for his friend, he knew deep down that a happy ending for someone like Steve Rogers wouldn’t have been easy. A whole lifetime, possibly more, had to have been lived to make Steve look as old as he did now, and Steve would  _ never  _ just take an easy life. Steve would’ve righted as many wrongs as possible before he allowed himself to be happy. The wedding ring on the third finger of Steve’s left hand glinted at him, the easy smile on his friends face shone brighter than the sunlight off the lake. Steve Rogers looked happy,  _ really  _ happy, for perhaps the first time Bucky had ever seen him.

Steve Rogers had retired, and his mantle of Captain America was passed to Sam Wilson. Bucky noticed, even if Sam and Steve didn’t, that the younger man's shoulders dropped almost immediately. The weight of that responsibility transferred to him the  _ second  _ his fingers touched that vibranium shield. Bucky sighed, and tucked his hands deeper into his pockets. Sam  _ was  _ a good man… Bucky couldn’t let him take this on by himself. 

The Captains turned to him then, the old and the new, and Bucky smiled as he walked over to them. He grasped Sam’s shoulder, murmured some words that hopefully sounded comforting and encouraging, and maybe a little mocking because Sam had said he didn’t mind. Then, he turned to his old friend, in every sense of the word, and said words that he had been hoping to say since the man from the bridge had shown up in his apartment in Romania;

“Goodbye, Steve.”

It was the end of the line.


End file.
